I fall into this trap myself, going back to your thesis, Carol; residing as I do in a metroplex that is eminently unsuited for mass transit yet continues to pour money down the light rail rabbit hole, it’s hard for me to believe that proponents, in the face of demonstrably poor Quality and negative Value, can truly be Consistent. But I should never underestimate the willful blindness of the True Believer.

Likewise quality seems similar. You talk about the quality of the lens relative to how accurate the images it produces.

For example, if someone says, “I don’t really know if I believe that God appeared to Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove, but I do believe that Joseph Smith really believed that he had seen God.” — they’re expressing confidence in the consistency of Joseph Smith’s account(s) of the First Vision, but not in their accuracy.

As another example, if a leader teaches that baptism is necessary for salvation, that teaching has poor consistency if the leader doesn’t actually believe in the importance of baptism, regardless of whether he himself has been baptized.

The question of whether church leaders live according to their own teachings is likely to be externally verifiable, and as Marc points out, probably not terribly relevant to the question of whether those teachings are true. The question of whether they believe in their own teachings is not externally verifiable, but is much more relevant to the question of the truth of those teachings.

I don’t see the argument for consistency, unless you take the roundabout that leaders and teachers following value {may lead to} more righteous leaders and teachers {may lead to} more consistency.

I agree that the scriptures cited argue that value is likely correlated with quality. However, driving from value to quality does very little for exclusivity (the “one and only”). However difficult, I think you have to start with quality to make much of a stab at exclusivity positions.

I don’t see the argument for consistency, unless you take the roundabout that leaders and teachers following value better more righteous leaders and teachers more consistency.

It’s worth adding that, as you point out, value isn’t always that much more knowable than quality, since some of the consequences to the decisions we make based on Church teachings are anticipated to only be fully realized after death. But I think, taking the Church’s teachings as a whole, that still leaves plenty of value that can be measured in the short-term. In fact, I think that’s a real strength of Mormonism (and I think also a lot of other religions as well) – is that it offers a lot of immediate value rather than relying solely on promises that are only realized after death.

Since some of the church’s truth claims are about value (e.g. the blessings that come from obedience to Church teachings), the line between value and quality is admittedly fuzzy.

Carole ~ I very much enjoyed your application of Allan Murphy’s forecasting structure to Mormonism, though I’d like to press you on the case for weighting value so heavily. I’m less concerned with the need for absolute “consistency”–God is admittedly working through mere mortals in a fallen world after all–but I think there is a strong argument that “quality” is right up there with or even more important than “value.” If the Church’s truth claims reflect reality, shouldn’t we, like Job, be willing to endure much hardship, persecution and strife for them? Didn’t Christ say “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” One could argue that “value” of following the Church’s teachings, at least in this temporal sphere, may not always seem worth it, but that it is the truth claims that change the calculus, both in the long term, spiritual sense (e.g., eternal salvation; eternal families) and in the short term, temporal sense (e.g., the peace of knowing that you are doing what’s right).

First I ask myself this question, does this make sense? And in this I’m not taking in a limited sense to just me but to other. For example if I were to stop 100 people and ask them the question I have then what would the majority say?

Next I ask what the Scriptures say about the question in hand. Again I need to expand on my frame of reference beyond my favorite Scriptures or just the one quoted in the manual. The electronic versions of the Scriptures are great for this type of research.

And lastly I ask, what are the behavioral consequences if I and 99 other people believe the same thing? In this I also consider a wide range of others including those who are weak or disadvantaged in some way. A lot of what I hear in Church only works well for those who are above average in intelligence, ability, or circumstances but fails miserably when applied to those whose life is a bed of cherries.